A passion for growing veggies

Phil Uhrich goes beyond the borders of his backyard to grow his crops, but his specialty is to grow sweet corn in ground enriched by filling deep holes with lawn clippings and covering with soil.

Photograph by: Mark van Manen
, Vancouver Sun

Phil Uhrich likes to grow corn just for the fun of it.

He lives with wife Carolyn in a beautiful big home in a well-heeled area of West Vancouver. Music stars Diana Krall and Elvis Costello are their neighbours.

From the platform deck on the top of the Uhrichs' house, which is located at the top of a hill, you get an extraordinary panoramic view of the entire Lower Mainland - from Burrard Inlet over the downtown area and Stanley Park, and out to the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island in the misty distance.

To many people, this would be paradise enough. But for Phil, there was one thing missing - cornfields.

So he has planted multiple patches of the finest corn you can grow - old-fashioned 'Seneca Horizon', super-sweet 'Honey Treat' along with 'Temptation' and 'Extra Early Super Sweet'.

One patch is located in his backyard, on a steep slope below his walled swimming pool and outdoor deck.

Another patch is directly across the street on a strip of unused property belonging to his neighbour.

Two more patches - big patches, standing seven feet high and producing at least 150 cobs - are located along a boulevard strip at the home of a friend about five-minute drive away.

Why does he do it? "You have no idea how good vegetables taste when they are harvested fresh from the garden," says Phil.

"The corn that you get right off the plant is different to any corn you buy."

He thinks the same about the asparagus he grows in a patch almost as big as the block of corn.

"Asparagus is especially sweet when it has just been harvested compared to the stuff in stores that has been cut several days before."

Perhaps it is testament to the tender, sweetness of his corn and asparagus that one day someone was caught helping themselves to a bag full.

"I'm not sure what you do in a case like this. Perhaps I should find them a garden patch of their own," he says.

It all started for Phil when he was a boy growing up in Flin Flon, Man., raised by a mother who was a refugee from Russia and a father, an accountant, whose family originated in Alsace.

"My mother did all her composting by simply digging a big hole and filling with it compostable stuff and then covering it over with soil. Then we would dig another hole."

Phil says the material rotted in the ground and they were able to plant over the top of it. The results were always impressive.

Years later, after he had settled in West Vancouver and was working as a successful radiologist, he began vegetable gardening, using the dig-fill-andcover composting method his mother had taught him.

Since he didn't have enough green waste to compost, he jumped into his beaten-up 1986 red second-hand pickup truck and went gathering bags of discarded lawn clippings, set out for collection, mainly in the Arbutus and Valley Drive areas.

He would dig an enormous hole and dump all the lawn clippings into it before covering it over and planting vegetables on top.

"If you dig deep enough here in West Van, you soon come to a beach-like sub-soil where the rocks are smooth and rounded.

"By adding grass and then backfilling, I was able to slowly build up quality soil levels."

At the long 60-by-15-foot vegetable border at his friend's home, he grows potatoes, peppers, celeriac (celery root), cabbage, Brussels sprouts and two staggered plantings of beans, in addition to the large stand of corn and asparagus.

Everything is grown totally organically without use of pesticides or fertilizer. And every inch is weeded by Phil twice a week. His reward is a continual supply of fresh vegetables year round.

"Every day, we get at least one or two vegetables out of the garden throughout the year."

At the veggie plot at his home and directly across the street, he grows artichokes, giant kohlrabi, beets, zucchini and tomatoes in a greenhouse to protect them from late-summer blight.

Phil believes the secret to his bountiful production is his zealous dedication to in-ground composting. He doesn't just use grass clippings; he also used egg shells and fish trimmings and weeds. He once found a dead dolphin on the beach and brought it home to add to one of his "composting pits."

Once it was covered, he placed a tomato plant on the top and he says it took off like "Jack's beanstalk."

"It did not produce a single tomato. It just grew like a tree and become this enormous, leafy plant. I think there was simply too much nitrogen in the soil."

What about the smell, I asked him. Does it ever become a problem?

"Neighbours were as mad as hell at me once when a wall collapsed and exposed some of the compost. I apologized again and again and did everything to make things right. I covered the area twice with tarps to stifle the smell. It mostly worked. But it didn't last long.

"I still think that this method works like a dream and the lesson is that you don't have to have a compost maker.

"You can dig your stuff directly into the ground and cover it and plant on top and you are still recycling."

Did he ever get lawn clippings from his neighbour, Diana Krall, I asked.

"I once asked her gardener if I could have some, but he said no. That's okay, I have people who are more than happy to drop off their lawn clippings, so I will be digging holes and filling them for years to come."

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